fp Turks and Caicos

His Excellency the Gov. Gordon Wetherell has appointed members to the new Integrity Commission that will hold its first meeting in May.

Sir David Simmons, chief justice of Barbados, will chair the commission. “I’m very glad that such a distinguished judge as Sir David Simmons has agreed to fill that role,” Wetherell said.

The governor explained that the law requires a judge to be on the commission, and that last year the law was amended to allow the judge to come from anywhere in the Commonwealth. Because there are only two judges in the country and no retired judges, he had to look to other Commonwealth countries, which in part delayed the commission’s launch, he said.

Commission members are Bishop Clarence N. Williams, Rev. Reuben Hall, Rosita Butterfield, Gary Brough and Jeremy Northcote. “These are all distinguished members of society here in the Turks and Caicos Islands,” the governor said.

The commission is required to have one member who is a lawyer and one who is an accountant. Northcote is a lawyer, and Brough is an accountant. The commission will also have a small permanent staff.

The commission was created last year to perform the following duties:

• Receive and keep declarations of people in public life
• Examine and investigate declarations
• Receive and investigates complaints regarding acts of corruption
• Conduct any investigations into any acts of corruption on its own initiative if satisfied that there are reasonable grounds for investigation
• Examine the practises and procedures of public bodies in order to facilitate the discovery of corrupt practices
• Instruction, advise and assist the management of public bodies.

“It will have a role in shoring up public confidence in the integrity of public institutions and in the integrity of public servants,” Wetherell said.

The commission was one of the recommendations of Sir Robin Auld in his Commission of Inquiry report last year.